Saturday, July 10: An Air Canada flight to Frankfurt where I will connect to Oporto tomorrow. The flight is late leaving.

Sunday, July 11: Lots of air traffic over Frankfurt so we arrive an hour and ten minutes late, which means Sheila Swerling Puritt and I have to race across the airport for our connecting flight. Sheila has organised this trip to visit the G7 association of wineries in Portugal and Sandro Bottega’s distillery and wineries in Veneto and Tuscany. We just make it.

I’m seated in front of a three-year-old boy who thinks my seat is a football. Our wine writer group is on this flight – Sheila, Sean Wood from Halifax, Gurvinder Bhatia from Edmonton, Raymond Chalifoux from Quebec and I. We will meet Irvin Wolkoff at the hotel.

The town of Amarante

A bus picks us up at the airport and drives us to Casa da Calçanda in Amarante, a drive of about 40 minutes from Oporto. We lunch on the terrace overlooking the River Tamega and the town. On the wine list is Dirk Van der Niepoort’s Redoma Rosé but they don’t have any. The maître d’ brings us three wines all made for the hotel: Lago Cerqueira Espumante de Vinho Verde Rosé, Quinta da Calçada Espumante de Vinho Verde and Quinta da Calçada Vinho Verde Branco. I order a smoked salmon and arugula wrap.

After lunch we walk around the town of Amarante, crossing the bridge to visit the church of S. Gonçalo with its magnificent organ and on to the ruins of the Magalhães manor. Then along the river bank to an open area where the locals come to order wine and snacks from merchants whose products are displayed under tents. They sit at open-air tables, smoking. Just beyond is a series of other tents with artisans selling their works.

Dinner in the hotel hosted by Pedro Costa and Chantal Guilhonato of Aveleda. A glass of Quinta da Calçada Espumante de Vinho Verde in the wine cellar before sitting at table. Amuse-gueule of foie gras, fig, wild strawberries and strawberry jam.

First course: Cannelon Lobster and crab with passion fruit and flowers, served with Casal Garcia Vinho Verde Rosé (NV).

On the terrace for a glass of Adega Velha Aguardente de Vinho Verde with coffee and Mignardises while the music festival outside the church brings us a local singer’s rendition of the song from Titanic. She sounds like Celine Dion.

The goat tower at Aveleda

Monday, July 11: A visit to Aveleda. We walk around the magnificent gardens of this 200-hectare estate (founded in 1671), of which 100 hectares are planted to grapes. Peacocks wander the grounds and there are eleven follies dotted around the wooded grounds, including a goat tower complete with goats. I had seen something like this at Backsberg in South Africa. Apparently Charles Back had visited the property and asked if he could copy the idea. That’s how Goats Do Roam came about. The follies are celebrated on Aveleda’s labels.

After a tour of the winery we settle into the tasting in a tasting lab. Pedro leads us through the following wines:

Aveleda Casal Garcia Vinho Verde (Trajaduro, Loureiro, Arinto, Azal): very pale with a green tint. Very fresh, lemony, minerally with a slight spritz; light and easy drinking. (87) (8 million bottles are made of this wine!)

In to lunch: Melon and ham served in a hollowed-out melon shell with Aveleda Fonte 2010; duck and rice with ham and bacon and a salad of tomato, beetroot, lettuce, carrot and corn, served with Aveleda Follies Touriga Nacional and Cabernet Sauvignon 2009. Dessert: Raspberry ice cream with Casal Garcia Vinho Verde Rosé (NV).

On to the bus to drive to our hotel in Bairrada the Curia Palace in Anadia, about two hours’ drive. At 6:30 pm we are picked up by Messias Vigário and his winemaker João Soares and driven to their winery in Mealhada for dinner. A glass of Messias Quinta do Valdoeiro 2006 (a Chardonnay sparkling wine) with ham, goat’s cheese, olives and deep fried cheese patties before sitting down to dinner. First course: potato salad with crab and shrimps, served with Messias Quinta do Valdoeiro White 2010 (Arinto, Bical and Chardonnay). Roast goat with potatoes, greens and carrots, with Messias Quinta do Cachão Douro Reserva Red 2009 followed by egg custard tart, sliced pineapple and mango, with Porto Messias Colheita 1991.

At dinner Gurvinder told us about the warehouse situation in Alberta. Apparently all wines entering Alberta have to be stored in a warehouse in St. Albert by a company who has the monopoly. Connect Logistics Services is owned by Exel, who are based in Cleveland. Excel is a sister company of DHL, which is owned by the German Post Office!

Tuesday, July 12: After breakfast we drive to Messias for a tour of the winery and tasting; but first a visit to their Quinta do Valdoeiro estate, one of the most southerly vineyards in Bairrada and the largest walled vineyard in the region.

Before lunch we are offered a glass of Aliança Particular Extra Brut (Chardonnay and Baga). At table, rice and pig offal with Aliança Galeria 2010, followed by AliançaQuinta da Garrida Reserva Dão 2005 with suckling pig, slices of orange and lettuce. Then Quinta dos Quatro Ventos Reserva 2006 (Touriga Nacional, Tinta Toriz, Touriga Franca – rich New World style). Dessert: a cake made of eggs, almonds and coconut. We end with Aliança XC 40 Year old Brandy. After lunch we are given a tour of the underground art collection – a fabulous display of African art, ceramics, tiles and fossils set in traditional wine cellars.

Drive to Aveiro. They call it the Venice of Portugal because of its canals complete with large gondolas. Many of the houses along the canals are in Art Nouveau style. We check into Hotel Moliceiro before being driven to a restaurant called Dori on the Costa Nova, from where Portuguese fishing fleets used
to leave to fish for cod off Newfoundland. Many of the houses here are painted with broad stripes. The food keeps coming – clams, gooseneck barnacles, deep-fried sole, sea bass, squid, calamari, cuttle fish, then a huge sea bass with rice. Lashings of wine – Aliança Galeria 2010, Aliança Quinta da Garrida Reserva Dão White 2010 and AliançaParticular Extra Brut.

The canal at Aveiro

Striped houses in Costa Nova

Wednesday, July 13: Drive from Aveiro south to Bombarral, about two hours to Quinta Dos Loridos, 45 minutes north of Lisbon. Here José Berardo has created the Buddha Eden Garden “in response to the destruction in 2001 of the great Bamiyan Buddhas of Afghanistan by the Taliban… Over 6000 tons of marble and granite buddhas, lanterns, terracotta soldiers and various oriental sculptures of all descriptions have been carefully placed among the natural vegetation.” Apart from the massive reclining Buddha, the most impressive sight is the double line of painted terracotta soldiers standing on a hill overlooking an ornamental lake.

A log bus ride from Bombarral to Azeitão to visit the Bacalhoa winery and shake hands with Joe Berardo, the President of the Bacalhoa group of wineries, whom I had met at his house in Madeira several years ago. (He is the co-owner of Colio Wines in Ontario.) After touring the facility, which used to be a huge book depository, our group were driven to the Palacio da Bacalhoa, where we stay tonight.

The Palacio de Bacalhoa

This is an amazing old building dating back to the late 13th century that has been substantially restored. The property stands on 12 hectares of grounds in the middle of Azeitão, complete with a formal miniature maze, a large pond and about 10 hectares of Cabernet Sauvignon vines all within its walls.

We settle on a terrace overlooking the vineyard for a comprehensive tasting of the company’s wines, conducted by the winemaker Vasco Penha Garcia and his colleague Filipa Tomaz Da Costa.

I share a bedroom with Irvin Wolkoff which is reputedly haunted. Above our beds are portraits of two women but apparently the ghost is male.

Thursday, July 14: A restless night listening for the ghost. The only evidence of his presence is the creaking of the bathroom door, an effect worthy of a horror movie.

J.M. da Fonseca Trilogia Moscatel blend (1900 + 1934 + 1965)

We breakfast on the terrace and then drive to José Maria de Fonseca, which is nearby. At 10 am we are given a tour of the cellars with the aging casks of Moscatel slumbering to the sound of Gregorian chant, and we see the family reserves that date back to 1880. The only years not available are 1901, 1936, 1937, 1939, 1940.

Then we meet Domingos Soares Franco, who takes us into the table wine cellar at the new facility on the edge of town for a barrel tasting of 2010 reds: Trincadiera, Touriga National in both American and French oak and Touriga Franca, the same. Then back to the old winery for an outdoor tasting:

With dessert José Maria da Fonseca Moscatel Roxo 20 Year Old (high-toned nose of orange peel and coffee beans; unctuous, toffee and burnt orange peel flavour; semi-dry with great length. A majestic dessert wine (92)). After this we had an ice cream that was made with 1911 Moscatel.

Lunch seemed to run into dinner because we drove into Lisbon and checked into the Britania Hotel. Dinner was at a former convent, now a restaurant called A Travessa. We started with a wine called Domingos Soares Franca 208 Castas Branca, a satirical product made from what Domingos said was 208 different varieties. This we drank with a series of tapas – raw cod slivers, tapenade, fried goat’s cheese and pumpkin
jam, slivered pork, scrambled eggs with mushrooms, oysters and clams. My main course was venison with black truffles, served with José Maria da Fonseca Castelão CO 99 Garrafeira (intense raspberry jam on the nose but rich and dry on the palate, looking very youthful for its years (89)). And so bed with a wake-up call for 6 am.

Friday, July 15: This morning we fly to Rome and connect to a flight to Venice. At Rome airport a woman in front of me has a cat in a carrying box. She’s arguing with the security guy because she doesn’t want the box with the cat in it to bed put through the X-ray machine. The cat is obviously terrified though not actually complaining. We all wait to see who’s going to win this battle. The solution would be for the woman to take the cat out of the box and hold it while the box goes through the scanner. But after several minutes the box with the cat inside goes through the machine.

We arrive in Venice after a full day of travel and meet up with Sid Cross and Rhonda May from Vancouver, who have flown in via Amsterdam. (Ray and Irv fly back to Canada today.) Eventually we find our driver, who takes us to our hotel, Villa Giustinian in Portobuffolè, about an hour’s drive from Venice airport.

We have an hour to install ourselves, shower and change for dinner at Distilleria
Bottega, where we are welcomed by the irrepressible Sandro Bottega. A reception featuring Bottega Gold Prosecco, followed by dinner for 40 people – our group of journalists plus buyers from all over Europe and England. Sandro introduces the evening by saying, “Prosecco is our god. The first word I said when I was a child was not Mama, not Papa, but Prosecco.” The meal consisted of lots of plates of calamari salad, cauliflower, zucchini, pork balls, rice, followed by tomato soup, peach risotto made with prosecco accompanied by an endless flow of prosecco, then an Italian BBQ of pork and beef ribs with Bottega Brunello di Montalcino 2006. With a sheep’s cheese called Bastardo di Monte Grappa Bottega Amarone 2008. Back at the hotel by 12:30 am.